INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man accused of driving drunk and killing someone walking home in the Mass Ave cultural district in 2024 pleaded guilty Friday in a Marion County court and avoided the maximum sentence.

Salvador Banales, 28, ran over Brandon Breedlove, 27, and two of his friends in the early morning hours nearly a year ago at the intersection of Massachusetts and North College avenues.

The family and friends of Breedlove asked the judge in Marion Superior Court 20 to give Banales the stiffest sentence possible, but she only gave him 5-1/2 years. Levi Lewis said, “We knew going in the types of sentences that come out of this courtroom. We were pretty realistic with ourselves and thought this is what we might expect to receive.”

Security camera video from a business showed Breedlove walking a friend home after a night-out on Massachusetts Avenue when they were hit.

Breedlove’s friends said he lit up every room he walked in to. He never met a stranger, and he cared deeply for his community. “I just think he embodied everything about what we want Indianapolis to be,” Lewis said.

Banales didn’t stop that night. The next day, he filed a police report to say his rental car was vandalized.

Police arrested him at the airport as he was trying to board a flight back home to Texas.

Officers said he smelled of alcohol. Banales later admitted that he had been drinking when he ran over Breedlove and two of his friends.

“I’m extremely remorseful. To all the families involved. Everybody that was there. All the families hurt. I’m not the guy that went out that night. That’s somebody I don’t recognize,” Banales said in court.

He faced a maximum of 12 years in prison as part of a plea deal.

“In balancing mitigators and aggravators in this case, I do find that the mitigators do outweigh the aggravators,” said Judge Jennifer Harrison.

Harrison said Banales having zero criminal history was one of the factors she considered when she decided to sentence him to 5-1/2 years in prison and four years of probation.

Lewis said, “I would say a lot of it is out of the judge’s hand. A lot of it is up to legislation. I think that the way the laws are worded does not allow the court to fully serve justice.”

Breedlove’s close friend adds that the sentence sent a bad message to future visitors of Indianapolis. “You need to come here and you need to be responsible and you need to treat our citizens with respect and our streets with respect, and I don’t think that that was heard today.”

As part of the plea deal, once Balanes leaves prison, he can’t get a driver’s license for five years.